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Out of Control in the House

Are there any adults in charge of the House? Watching this week’s frenzied slash-and-burn budget contest, we had to conclude the answer to that is no.

First Speaker John Boehner’s Republican leadership proposed cutting the rest of the 2011 budget by $32 billion. But that wasn’t enough for his fanatical freshmen, who demanded that it be cut by $61 billion, destroying vital government programs with gleeful abandon.

Even that wasn’t enough for leaders of the hard-line Republican Study Committee, which represents two-thirds of House Republicans. They proposed cutting another $20 billion, for a ludicrous total of $81 billion, all out of the next seven months of government operations.

Now some members want to go still further. On Tuesday, the House began debating the list of proposed cuts, and more than 500 amendments were filed, mostly from Republicans trying to cut still more out of — or end — programs they dislike. One would stop paying dues to the United Nations. Others would cut all financing for the health care reform law, or Planned Parenthood, or any foreign aid to a country that regularly disagrees with the United States at the United Nations.

If the Republicans got their way, it would wreak havoc on Americans’ lives and national security. This blood sport also has nothing to do with the programs that are driving up the long-term deficit: Medicare, Medicaid and, to a lesser extent, Social Security.

When he presented his 2012 budget on Monday, President Obama avoided those difficult issues. On Tuesday, he tried to bring a little adult supervision to the budget debate by offering to begin discussing with Republican leaders ways to solve those big-ticket problems. Senate Republican leaders and the House budget chairman, Paul Ryan, have indicated a willingness to discuss entitlements. (Given the political volatility of these issues, the talks need to be behind closed doors.)

Mr. Boehner could show leadership, and bring some sense back to the House, by reminding his members that entitlements are where the big money lies. Instead, he has endorsed the race to remove $100 billion from nonsecurity discretionary spending for the rest of 2011.

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Asked on Tuesday if he was concerned that the proposed cuts could lead to tens of thousands of new layoffs, he said he was not. “Over the last two years, since President Obama has taken office, the federal government has added 200,000 new federal jobs,” he said. “And if some of those jobs are lost in this, so be it.”

His figure of 200,000 new federal workers appears to be more than three times higher than reality. Several credible economists have said that an $81 billion cut could result in up to 800,000 layoffs throughout the American economy.

The House freshmen seemed even less concerned about the effect of their budget slashing. “A lot of us freshmen don’t have a whole lot of knowledge about how Washington, D.C., is operated,” Representative Kristi Noem, a Republican of South Dakota, told the Conservative Political Action Conference last week. “And, frankly, we don’t really care.”

In all of their posturing, Republican lawmakers have studiously avoided making clear to voters what vital government services would be slashed or disappear if they got their way — like investment in cancer research or a sharp reduction in federal meat inspections, or the number of police on the street, or agents that keep the borders secure, or the number of teachers in your kids’ schools.

Those cuts will never get past the Senate, and, on Tuesday, Mr. Obama said he would veto such job-killing cuts if they arrive at his desk. That puts the House leadership on notice. Will they follow the mob and allow the government to shut down if the cuts are not enacted? Or will they take back control of the House and steer it toward reality?

A version of this editorial appears in print on February 17, 2011, on Page A30 of the New York edition with the headline: Out of Control in the House. Today's Paper|Subscribe